Gambit Declined
by GwendolynStacy
Summary: Endgame Spoilers! / Tony offers to sacrifice his life in order to defeat Thanos. Nebula refuses. Or: The rainbows and sunshine, everybody-lives, nobody-dies alternative to Endgame.
1. Chapter 1

**Gambit Declined**

**Summary**: Tony offers to sacrifice his life in order to defeat Thanos. Nebula refuses.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The sight of Thanos fades into the background as Nebula's eyes lock onto Tony.

The sounds of the ongoing battle echo in her ears – the battle cries of allies, the inhuman screeches of the vermin fighting for Thanos and the whir of Leviathans spreading destruction from the skies. The only sound louder is the blood pumping through Nebula's veins. It pounds in her ears like a wardrum.

"Tony," she whispers, and, breaking out into a run, she shouts, "Tony!"

Neither he nor Thanos seem to hear her. The Gauntlet shines golden on Thanos' hand and the fighting around them halts.

"I am inevitable."

There are no gems gleaming among the gold and Thanos doesn't realize it. He snaps.

Nothing happens.

Time seems to come to a standstill.

Tony pants, the strain of the fight catching up with his fragile, human body. The glove of his armor – unremarkable compared to the one Thanos wears and built by unremarkable, human hands – shines with the colors of the universe.

"And I..."

Four brave morons sharing the brunt of the power stone almost died when they used it against Ronan. There are six stones, and Tony has them all. He's alone.

"... am..."

He won't survive it. He'll die, letting the power of the infinity stones surge through his body in order to end it all.

"... Iron Man."

Tony sets his fingers in a snap and Nebula launches herself forward.

There's metal pressed against her body and a bright light. Pain. All consuming pain and Tony's gasp sounding breathless in her ears, power coursing through her body, burning through her veins like liquid fire.

Nebula tightens her grip around Tony and screams.

She wakes to the feeling of ash on her skin and thinks, Not again.

Their loss on Titan was devastating. The years that followed were worse. Ash in the air, on their skin, in their lungs, ash where the Guardians had stood and the sorcerer and the kid. Only Nebula and Tony on a barren planet, drifting through space, wasting away. Mourning. Scheming.

Nebula pries open her eyes in time to watch Thanos disintegrate and dares to hope.

She looks at Tony and hope warps into dread.

She thinks that her mouth is moving but no sound escapes. Her lips taste like blood and burnt flesh.

She tries again to call his name and fails and decides to concentrate on her legs rather than her vocal cords. One of them is gone. The other is charred down to its pain receptors. She crawls instead, using her semi functioning arm to claw her way forward inch by inch.

She reaches Tony at the same time that Steve finds them both.

"Tony," he whispers, standing frozen in place. Useless.

Nebula ignores him and claws her spasming hand into the hem of Tony's armor. It's torn open or melted or both, dented in some places and scorched black in others. One half of his face is blistered and Nebula can't tell whether the injuries underneath the suit are superficial or deadly.

If she had control over her body, she'd check for herself.

"Tony," Steve whispers again, more frantic. "No. Tony."

Nebula tries to get her voice to work. A growl is all that she manages, closely followed by an almost feral sounding, "Do something."

Half of Nebula's body is falling to pieces. The stench of scorched wires and melted metal burns in her nose. Nebula musters all the energy she has left – perhaps the leftovers of the infinity stones' power flowing through her body – and shouts, "Do something! He's alive!"

Steve looks at her and stumbles forwards. Pepper is faster and breaks out into a run mere seconds after her armor touches the ground. Rhodey is right behind her.

"Tony," she breathes, stumbling out of her suit and to Tony's side. She has to navigate around Nebula to do so, and Nebula can't bring herself to care. "Tony."

"Peps..."

Tony's voice is weak and Nebula hates the sound of it. They survived the end of the world together. They survived the endlessness of space. They survived years in a hopeless, bitter version of reality and yet, they came out swinging.

Who has the nerve to tell them that this is the end for the both of them? For either of them?

Nebula coughs in a grovelling, harsh sound that feels like glass shards in her throat. The missing pieces of her body are making themselves known. Nebula's control circuit is screaming at her to power down and conserve energy – or else letting her know that she reached the end of her existence.

"What happened?" Rhodey asks on Tony's other side, his voice both sharp and trembling. His eyes wander towards Nebula and he can't hide the horror in his gaze. Nebula's mutilated body must make a horrendous sight.

She almost wants to tell him that it isn't a big deal – almost her entire body is replaceable – but her voice seems to have stopped working again. She shivers and wonders which part of her had been damaged to cause the malfunction.

"He used the stones," Steve says, his brows set in a firm line. His eyes twitch over to Nebula. "They did. She... They... Tony took the stones and did the Snap. Nebula shared the backlash."

Tony's head perks up at the sentence, glassy eyes struggling to focus on Nebula. "Nebula..."

"Shut up."

"Neb-Nebula..."

"Save your breath," Nebula snaps, and she hisses at the pain it sends coursing through her body. She'll kill him herself if Tony survives the backlash of the stones only to die through overexertion afterwards.

"FRIDAY. Diagnosis, now." Pepper's voice trembles as she speaks the words. She wrings her hands in the need to reach out to Tony but doesn't know where to touch that won't make it worse.

"Vital signs are deteriorating rapidly," FRIDAY says. "Condition is critical but not yet terminal."

"In other words," Nebula forces out through clenched teeth, "quit dawdling and move!" She's screaming out the last bit and exerts the last of her energy.

There's no more talking. Steve reaches forward to pull Nebula off of Tony – mumbling empty apologies as Nebula's pain receptors flare up in agony – and Rhodey heaves Tony into his arms, armor and all.

Tony's lips are moving but Nebula can no longer make out the words. Rhodey keeps whispering, "You did it. We won. You did it, Tones," and other meaningless chatter as he breaks out into a sprint as quickly as the burden in his arms allows him to.

Pepper flies ahead of them, perhaps hunting down some sort of medical aid.

Steve stays behind. His hands hover over Nebula's body. "Nebula. Nebula, you need to tell me how to help you. How bad is it?"

Nebula doesn't muster the strength to answer. Tony is taken care of and Nebula lets go.

There's darkness and pain, satisfaction at their victory and guilt at its cost. Thanos' demise plays on repeat in Nebula's head, years and years of longing, of yearning for revenge wrapped up in a single moment.

Tony's death follows Thanos' more often than it does not. Nebula can't bring herself to decide whether it is worth it.

Nebula dreams.

And lives.

And wakes.

"I didn't think you'd make it," are her words of greeting upon opening her eyes. Rocket isn't looking at her but sits nearby and in a comfortable position that suggests he's been there for a long while.

Nebula pushes herself up on limbs that feel foreign and strange. They work, which is enough.

"Where's Tony?" she rasps, taking in her surroundings with a fleeting glance. It isn't worth any more of her attention than what is necessary to determine that Tony isn't there.

Her eyes linger on the Guardians sleeping in one corner of the room – Gamora among them – but she forces herself to move on. Later.

"We won, in case you're interested."

"I know," Nebula growls. "I was there." She felt their 'victory' burning away half of her body. She needs to find out what it did to Tony.

Rocket grunts in acknowledgement. "Thanks for that, I guess." He turns towards the door and Nebula is tempted to try out the weapon systems of her new arms in his direction. (She doubts there are any. She already hates them.)

Rocket throws a glance over his shoulder and says, "You coming or what? He's this way."

Nebula almost stumbles in her hurry to follow along.

Tony looks better than the last time Nebula saw him. He still looks like he's on the verge of death.

Gray skin stands in contrast to white bandages. The Avengers-themed blanket somebody threw over him looks almost offensively colorful in comparison.

Pepper sleeps in an armchair next to his bed, her hair an unkempt mess and wearing clothes that look as though she wore them underneath her battle armor.

The kid – Peter – sits in a corner with a much younger child, playing some sort of silly game.

A news report is shown hovering above the bed, depicting footage of the battle and the aftermath. Images of Tony keep flashing over the screen, in his armor, without it, during the battle and being carried away afterwards. He looks like a corpse. The public is in a frenzy.

"All stations are showing the same," Rhodey mutters without looking up. His eyes twitch back and forth between the screen and Tony in an almost convulsive gesture. "The public hasn't seen anything of him besides that footage. Most think he died."

Looking at Tony now, Nebula can't blame them. If it wasn't for the mild shifting of the blanket to the rhythm of Tony's breathing, she might have come to believe the same.

"It's you!" Peter jumps to his feet and stands in front of Nebula in an instant. "Everybody says you saved him! He almost died when he saved us, but he didn't, because of you!"

He looks as though he's seconds away of hugging Nebula. Nebula shies away with a glare. He grabs for her hand instead and holds on tightly. "Thank you so much! If it wasn't for you, he... Mr. Stark would have..."

He beams, but his eyes are wet. Nebula doesn't know what to say, so she doesn't say anything at all.

"Thank you," Peter repeats, tightening his grip around her hand. "Thank you so much."

Nebula has always been horrible at dealing with sentimentalities. She squeezes Peter's hand briefly and pulls away. He doesn't stop her when she steps closer to Tony's bed.

"How is he," she says, for some reason failing to raise her voice in a question.

"He'll live," Pepper replies, evidently having woken from her exhaustion-induced nap. Her words lift a weight off of Nebula's shoulders and she closes her eyes in a moment of indulgence. "His injuries run deep, but... he'll live. He's gonna recover." She says it although she needs to convince herself of the fact.

Nebula steps around Pepper. Nobody stops her when she sits down besides Tony. Nebula leans back against the wooden frame of the bed and waits.

* * *

A/N: There's gonna be three parts of this. The next is going to be from Tony's POV.

Writing this did wonders to soothe my grief after Endgame. Enjoy!

Beta'd by the wonderful **To Mockingbird** and **PyrothTenka**!

Please take the time to leave a review!

~Gwen


	2. Chapter 2

**Gambit Declined**

**Summary**: Tony offers to sacrifice his life in order to defeat Thanos. Nebula refuses.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Tony wakes to the beautiful sound of Morgan's laughter and wonders if he's dreaming.

He hasn't expected to see his daughter again. He hasn't expected to wake up at all. Perhaps this is what comes afterwards, and Tony is only fooling himself into thinking his story could have come to any sort of happy ending.

There's a hand stroking through Tony's hair, and he wants to melt into the touch and never feel anything else besides this. He'd recognize Pepper anywhere.

"You're awake," she whispers, her voice carrying hope and relief that makes Tony feel guilty about not having woken up sooner. How long has he been sleeping? How much has he missed?

"Hey Peps," he croaks, wincing at the harsh quality of his voice. He must have been out for a while. "Did we win? Did we... Did everybody..."

"Everybody's fine." Pepper takes his hand and smiles, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "You did it. You saved us."

"Not everybody," Tony mutters. He thinks of Natasha's sacrifice that made everything possible in the first place. He thinks of Vision, killed before the Snap had even happened. He thinks of everybody in the same position, killed as the result of Thanos' megalomania but not in the one event they managed to unmake.

Pepper's laugh startles Tony out of his thoughts. He stares at her, wondering if everything that happened is finally too much for her to handle.

"FRIDAY," she says, a smile tugging at her lips that feels misplaced considering their topic of conversation. "Show him."

A screen flickers to life in front of them and Tony sets eyes on what has to be an old recording. Except it can't be. Natasha lies curled up underneath what looks like half a dozen blankets and Clint, both of them paying the running television in front of them no mind.

Sam sits nearby, lazily tapping on his phone. He can't be. Sam spent the last five year dusted, there can't possibly be footage of him and Natasha – new hairdo and all – in the same room.

As Tony keeps watching, Vision enters the room through one of the walls. The others look up as he hovers nearby, perhaps asking some sort of question.

A lump forms in Tony's throat and he has trouble making his mouth form words. "How?" he croaks, pretending as though his voice didn't crack embarrassingly in the middle of it.

"They came back after Bruce used the Gauntlet. Not just those who died in the Snap, but everybody. Everybody who died at Thanos' hand. He did it." Pepper's smile dims. "Everybody except Natasha."

Natasha gave her life in exchange for the soul stone. It was impossible to bring back a life that had been given as a trade to receive the power in the first place.

On the screen, Natasha pushes Clint off of her and uncurls from her blanket cocoon long enough to accept one of the sandwiches Bruce carries in from the kitchen. Sam's lips move and Natasha laughs.

"But she's there," Tony mutters. "She's... she's right there. How...?" Tony's voice gives out again and he clears his throat. He winces at the motion. It feels like swallowing sandpaper.

Pepper pulls her hand out of Tony's hair and takes his hand instead. "Steve took the stones and returned them to their rightful places." Her lips pull back into a smile. "Including the soul stone."

"He traded her back," Tony realizes, eyes widening in amazement. A soul for a soul.

Pepper's grip tightens around his hand. "It was so close, Tony." The smile slides off of Pepper's face and her eyes slip downwards. "You almost didn't make it. We came this close to losing you."

Pepper's tears spill over and drip onto the mattress. The sight of them make Tony feel like crying himself. "I'm here," he says, squeezing Pepper's hand as firmly as he manages. "I lived."

Barely so, from the sounds of it. Wielding the stones was agony beyond anything Tony ever felt before. He can't believe that he actually pulled through. He can't believe that he...

Tony shoots up in the bed. "Nebula!" Nebula was there with him. He was about to snap, and she... Nebula took part of the burden. Tony saw her lying beside him, half of her body melted away. Tony's voice becomes frantic. "Nebula. She was there. She was... her body was... Where is she? Pepper, you gotta tell me where–"

There's movement in the corner of his eye and Tony trails off.

Nebula sits on the ground at the other end of the room. Going by her wide eyed stare, she didn't realize that Tony had woken up until he raised his voice.

Next to her sits Morgan. "Dad's awake!" She leaps to her feet and, rather than run straight at Tony, grabs Nebula's hand (or rather two of her fingers) and tugs her along.

Tony grunts as she jumps into his lap and jostles his injuries. He waves off Pepper's alarmed, "Morgan! Be careful." and pulls her close with one of his arms. The other hangs limply at his side. Tony doesn't care enough to investigate further. "Hey baby," he whispers, burying his nose in her hair and tightening his grip.

Nebula hovers close to the bed, shifting on her feet awkwardly. Tony gives her a once over and notes the basic, ugly prosthetics that now make up half of her body. They look as though somebody had thrown them together haphazardly – which, considering everything that needs to be done as cleanup after the battle, is probably the truth.

He promises himself to do something about it as soon as he's able to and pulls away from Morgan enough to grip his daughter's shoulders and look into her eyes. He takes in the sight of her and pretends like his eyes aren't watering. "Were you two playing?"

"Nebula taught me a game," Morgan says with a dutiful nod.

"Did she?" Tony's smile widens. Considering Nebula quite possibly played a single game in all of her life, he has a pretty good idea which one it might be. "Do you think she'll teach me, too?"

Morgan considers this. "Maybe," she allows. "But later. We're not done yet."

"Don't want your old man butting in, hmm? I'm hurt." Tony's tone is definitely ruined by the smile he's giving Nebula. She turns away – Tony is pretty sure he looks like he's on the verge of tears, and she never knew how to deal with something like that. It's fine. He'll take her aside later and thank her, properly.

He'll also take care of those awful prosthetics. Simply looking at them makes Tony wince in sympathy.

"Morgan," Pepper says, her voice pitched in an odd tone. "Do you want to tell him who else you've been playing games with?"

Tony realizes who Pepper is talking about seconds before the door barges open and Peter comes storming through.

"Mr. Stark – I mean Tony! FRIDAY told me that you woke up!"

There's a lump forming in Tony's throat and affection bubbling up in his chest. He already saw Peter alive and well, but the middle of a battle field isn't the sort of environment that allows for a heartfelt reunion.

The kid continues to talk, and Tony doesn't try to stop him. He doesn't know if he wants to stop him.

"It's been crazy around here! I still can't believe we've been gone for five years. And you have a daughter now!" He looks at Morgan with half incredulous, half starstruck eyes. Tony can relate to the sentiment. He feels the same every time he looks at her.

"She doesn't really look like you. Well, except the hair. Do children start to look more like their parents when they're older? She does kind of look like Pepper though."

"Kid," Tony says.

"A bit. Maybe? She's definitely got her nose. Did she get your brain instead?"

"Kid," Tony tries again, and he pretends not to see Pepper badly hiding a laugh beside him. Morgan is watching Peter intently as though he's a particularly interesting jigsaw puzzle.

"I know! I know! I'm sorry, I'm just excited. It's been so long, for you that is, it's only been days for me. I guess I'm just nervous. Five years is such a long time, so what if you don't– Oh. Oh, okay. Are we hugging again? We're hugging again. This is great. This is... definitely better without the suits."

Peter falls silent as Tony tightens his grip around him. He breathes out a shaky breath and allows himself to relax as Peter returns the embrace. He feels the kid clinging onto his shirt.

Something is missing, so Tony leans back far enough to sling his arm around Morgan and pulls her close on his other side. It's made difficult by the fact that his other arm remains stubborn and useless but Tony makes it work regardless. The mattress dips low as Pepper sits down beside them and continues carding her hand through Tony's hair like she had earlier.

Rhodey completes the picture when he walks in, pauses, and softly asks FRIDAY whether she's captured the moment on footage.

(She has.)

(Tony is making it his life goal to show it to everybody he knows, or doesn't.)

* * *

A/N: One more part to go! Hope you enjoy!

Beta'd by the wonderful **To Mockingbird** and **PyrothTenka**!

Please take the time to leave a review!

~Gwen


	3. Chapter 3

**Gambit Declined**

**Summary**: Tony offers to sacrifice his life in order to defeat Thanos. Nebula refuses.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

The arm that took the brunt of the stones' power is beyond saving. Tony repurposes his nano tech as an impromptu prosthesis until he can come up with something better. The price seems almost laughably small in face of everything else that happened.

Life goes on. The world recovers. The five years after the Snap are impossible to forget, and while the pain doesn't disappear, it fades. Relief and happiness drown out bitterness and grief as reunions wash away the suffering of loss and death.

There may be no way for things to go back to normal, but at least they're moving on.

"We can't go back to how things were," Steve says one of these days, breaking the semi-comfortable silence they were sharing. "Everything's different now."

"I know." Tony pauses. "I don't think I'd want to go back to how it was." Perhaps in retrospect, they never had anything worth holding onto in the first place. Natasha called their team a family. Perhaps they were all kidding themselves.

"We'll just have to start from scratch," Steve says.

Tony thinks about it and decides that he might be able to give it a try.

He makes his first public appearance two weeks after everything ended. The compound is drowning in mail at that point: cards and flowers and gifts, well wishes and gratitude and hope.

Peter and Harley help him sort through them. ("I can't believe I had to come all the way from Tennessee just to make sure you didn't kick the bucket! Don't do this to me, old man.") Both of them hand over the particularly heartfelt ones and pretend not to notice Tony's watery smile as he reads every single one.

He releases a statement to the public. He shows his face on TV. The world takes a collective breath of relief.

"People are wondering why they aren't seeing Iron Man anymore," Rhodey notes at the breakfast table one day, not entirely managing to keep his voice casual. There's a question hidden in his words he doesn't want to speak out loud. Perhaps he thinks Tony isn't ready to answer it.

"They'll have to get used to it," Tony says, drowning his pancakes in syrup and earning a disgusted glance from Rhodey for it.

Rhodey hesitates. "That's it then? You're done with it?"

"I'm done," Tony says, and they continue to eat in silence.

Tony hasn't recovered all of his strength, and he doubts he ever will. His body has never entirely recovered from those weeks of starvation. Now, after the infinity stones have taken their toll, he isn't sure if he'll ever be able to fly again. The thought doesn't bother him as much as it would have once upon a time.

Tony fixes up Nebula's body as soon as he's physically able to hold a blowtorch. It takes him longer than he likes to admit: he reluctantly takes breaks as often as he needs to, and he asks Rhodey or Steve or whoever is there to bring him the material he needs so he doesn't have to carry it himself.

Nebula is patient. She refuses to accept when Tony tries to thank her for saving his life.

"You are being stupid." She scowls, crossing her newly made arms in front of her no longer half-melted chest. "You are the one who rid this world of Thanos. I could not leave him the satisfaction of taking you with him."

Tony accepts her words and keeps on tinkering. Nebula isn't good with words. There are other ways to show his gratitude.

(Morgan barges in when it's time for Tony to choose the superficial features of Nebula's new limbs. Morgan declares that clearly, red is by far the prettiest color out there.)

(They make a compromise and throw in more purple – Morgan's second favorite color.)

(Nebula pretends to be indulging her. Tony pretends not to see her expression soften as she watches Morgan sit on top of his workbench, swinging her legs and playing with harmless spare parts Tony keeps in the workshop just for her.)

The Avengers come and go, doing their duty protecting the public and returning to the compound when they're done. They talk less – not everything that happened to them needs to be put into words – but they spend more time together than they ever did before.

Clint and Natasha don't leave each others' side for several weeks.

Bruce is out there, helping to reconstruct and to rebuild and to make appearances in public.

Steve spends a lot of his time outside of the compound. He returns with Bucky or Wanda or with nobody at all, and nobody is surprised when Sam picks up the shield and Steve smiles lighter than any of them can remember.

Thor makes time to visit in between rebuilding Asgard at Valkyrie's side and travelling with the Guardians.

Pepper's skills with her suit improve in leaps and bounds. She flies out as Rescue while Tony stays at home with Morgan, and they watch her on television together afterwards. Tony pulls strings at Stark Industries to produce Rescue merchandize – making sure to commission both high quality action figures as well as the crappy one dollar items only found in thrift shops.

(Morgan is delighted.)

(Pepper asks for a divorce.)

(Tony refuses to wear anything other than his amazing wife's merchandize for an entire month straight and makes certain that Morgan does the same.)

All of their scars run deep, and some do more so than others. They won't ever be able to forget. So they cope. They move on.

Tony watches the people that are part of his life and wonders when he became so lucky.

Things aren't the way they used to be, and perhaps it's for the best. They recover. They reconcile.

They'll be fine.

* * *

A/N: Beta'd by the wonderful **To Mockingbird** and **PyrothTenka**!

Aaand, that was the last one. Hope you enjoyed, and please be a dear and throw me a review before you leave :)

~Gwen


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